I Redeemed Him, But Who Will Redeem Me? - Chapter 8
But that flicker of strangeness—he quickly forced it down. She hasn’t changed, he thought. She’s just gotten better at acting.
Lin Xicai returned to the classroom. As she pushed open the door, an eraser came flying, smacking her squarely on the forehead.
Two boys fooling around burst into laughter. Their apology was half-hearted:
“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to…”
Lin Xicai bent down to pick up the eraser, ready to throw it back in retaliation, but a hand landed on her shoulder. The math teacher stepped in right as the second period bell rang.
“Class time. Go back to your seats.”
Her anger fizzled out, leaving only irritation. Ever since she came here, not a single thing had gone smoothly. Everyone was causing trouble, blocking her at every turn. One mess after another—it had already begun to seriously interfere with her main mission.
The day was utterly rotten.
The only relief was that Xie Shi didn’t show up.
Because of his absence, after a disastrous morning, the rest of her day passed in relative peace.
Her moods shifted as quickly as the wind. By the next morning, when she woke, she was already back to her usual self—almost entirely.
She slung on her backpack as always, crossed through the garden as always—and there, in the exact same spot, saw the two uncles trimming roses.
She blinked at them, surprised. Didn’t they just prune this flowerbed yesterday?
Lost in thought, she had already walked up beside it. One of the men plucked a bloom and handed it to her with a grin.
“This one’s the freshest, just cut.”
Lin Xicai froze, then mechanically accepted the flower. A ripple of unease flickered in her chest, but she didn’t dwell on it.
It was when she got off the bus that the sense of wrongness struck her harder—because the person sitting beside her seemed to have sat beside her yesterday too.
Was that all?
No.
Not just this person. The one behind her, the one in front of her—they were the same as yesterday.
In front of her sat a grandparent and child. Behind her, a couple. Beside her, a middle-aged woman. And diagonally ahead, a muscular man gripping the overhead strap with one hand while carrying groceries in the other—
She remembered every one of them. She’d seen all of them yesterday.
Or put another way:
Everyone on today’s bus was the same as yesterday.
A chill crawled up her spine, spreading through her whole body in an instant. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t coincidence.
But why—why was this happening…?
Still holding her water bottle, she walked toward school, mind tangled in chaos. At a corner, she crashed hard into someone. He gave a muffled grunt. She staggered back half a step, her bottle clattering to the ground.
A hand steadied her arm. She looked up, dazed—straight into a refined, handsome face.
The boy smiled gently—exactly the same smile as yesterday—then crouched to pick up her bottle and handed it back.
Lin Xicai’s eyes widened. She scrutinized that face as he wiped the bottle clean, saying with the same light laugh, “It’s dirty.”
The crawling unease exploded into raw terror.
Now she knew what had been wrong since morning.
It was repetition.
From the moment she opened her eyes today, the world had been repeating.
Everything that had happened so far had already happened yesterday.
Today was repeating yesterday.
Her fingers trembled. She glanced down at her phone. The date on the screen froze her in place.
October 16th.
Yesterday’s date.
Her face drained of color. The boy opposite raised a brow at her expression and chuckled softly.
“Am I really that scary, classmate?”
Her throat went dry. “Can you… can you check the date for me?”
She clung to the tiniest shred of hope—maybe it was just her phone malfunctioning.
Her fear, her panic—it seemed to amuse him. He tilted his head, pretending ignorance.
“What date?”
She grasped at the lifeline. “Today’s date. What day is it today?”
He glanced casually at his phone, then looked back at her face with quiet curiosity.
“October 16th. Tuesday.”
The flat tone crushed her final hope. Her face turned ashen. She stood there blankly for a long moment before forcing a brittle smile, muttering thanks, and hurrying away.
His gaze lingered, unreadable, following her until she vanished from sight.
Still shaken, Lin Xicai returned to class and sat down. She glanced at the clock, then toward the doorway—
Just as she expected, the language class rep appeared, arms full of homework, locking eyes with her.
“Zhong Fei, the language teacher wants to see you in the office.”
She forced a bitter smile.
The class rep shivered, unsettled by the look on her face.
In the office, when the language teacher frowned and asked, “Why are you alone? Where’s your parent?” Lin Xicai didn’t answer. She only stared at the door, silently counting down in her mind.
And right on cue, Fu Yanxiu stepped through.
That tall figure. That cool, detached expression. Even the mocking curl of his lips—exactly as yesterday.
The same words. The same ridicule.
Yesterday’s embarrassment and guilt were gone. Now she only sat numbly, like trapped in a nightmare, crushed beneath confusion and dread.
Why?
What was happening?
She called desperately for the system inside her mind—but there was no reply.
Frustration swelled into despair. She was like a lone boat cast adrift in a vast sea, unseen, left to sink or float on her own.
Back in class, she opened the door—just in time for an eraser to fly at her head again.
This time, her gaze hardened. She caught it mid-air and, before the teacher could stop her, hurled it back with force.
“Keep your things to yourselves,” she said coldly.
The boy clutched his head. “What the hell? It was an accident!”
“Was it?” she sneered. “Mine was an accident too.”
“You—!”
She brushed past them, adding under her breath, “No one gets hit by the same eraser twice.”
The boys exchanged baffled looks. One tapped his head meaningfully, as if to say she’s crazy.
She ignored them. She needed answers. She needed to know why this world had suddenly glitched.
From her seat, she watched the classroom with detached eyes, as if she were merely an observer.
Everything happened exactly as yesterday. The teacher’s tone, the order of questions, the students called to answer, even the silly jokes—perfectly identical, down to the second.
The class performed like dedicated NPCs, unaware they were acting.
No fear. No confusion. Even if today repeated a thousand times, they would feel only freshness and anticipation—as if it were new each time.
She alone was the outlier.
Wide awake. A misfit, trapped in the loop, forced to endure the crushing monotony.
If she eventually broke under it, no one would ever understand. They would only think she had gone mad.
She glanced at the empty desk beside her. Amid her despair, a twisted sense of relief surfaced—
He hadn’t come to class yesterday. Which meant, if the loop kept going, he wouldn’t come today either. Did that mean she’d never have to see him again?
Her lips twitched into a bitter smile. Only I could find comfort in something this absurd.
Listless, she propped her chin on her hand and listened to the lesson. Having heard it once already, she actually solved a few problems this time.
When the bell rang for the fourth period, she was slumped on her desk, dazed. Suddenly, the room went silent.
Not just quiet—but abruptly, unnaturally paused.
She thought the teacher had arrived and turned her head casually—then froze. Her pupils constricted.
She shot up to her feet, staring as someone strode toward her.
Xie Shi, backpack in hand, entered the classroom. As always, indifferent and untouchable. As he brushed past, the breeze lifted the strands of her hair. She stared, burning holes into his face—he didn’t spare her a glance.
It wasn’t wise to stare at such a dangerous person. But right now, she couldn’t look away.
From morning until this moment, he was the first anomaly.
Yesterday he hadn’t come to class. Today, he had.
In a world that repeated everything, only he had acted differently. Which meant—he was aware. He remembered.
Or worse.
Her heart sank like a stone.
Maybe this entire twisted loop—
Was his doing.